Women 's Reading

"Some day you will look back on all this and laugh." If you never thought you would hear that phrase applied to the usually agonizing process of psychoanalysis, think again! Riggin Waugh, the Lambda Literary Award-nominated editor of Ex-Lover Weird Shit has compiled a collection of stories by some very well-known writers, poets, and cartoonists reflecting the experience of lesbians on the couch!

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
by Jeanette Winterson
Order this Book

Winner of the prestigious Whitbread Prize for best first novel and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for best writer under 35, this modern classic has sold 100,000 copies in the United States. The novel chronicles the life of a bright and rebellious orphan who is adopted into an Evangelical household in the dour, industrial Midlands. Her insistence on listening to the truths of her own heart and mind makes for an unforgettable chronicle of an eccentric, moving rite of passage into adulthood.*

Review:
"Oranges turned out to be a literary novel, rich with allusions, myth and thought-provoking meditations on truth and life." Lambda Book Report, July/August 1995  Charlotte Innes

Southland
by Revoyr, Nina

"An absolutely compelling story of family and racial tragedy. Revoyr's novel is honest in detailing southern California's brutal history, and honorable in showing how families survived with love and tenacity and dignity." -- Susan Straight, author of "Highwire Moon"

"Southland "brings us a fascinating story of race, love, murder and history, against the backdrop of an ever-changing Los Angeles. A young Japanese-American woman, Jackie Ishida, is in her last semester of law school when her grandfather, Frank Sakai, dies unexpectedly. While trying to fulfill a request from his will, Jackie discovers that four African-American boys were killed in the store Frank owned during the Watts Riots of 1965. Along with James Lanier, a cousin of one of the victims, Jackie tries to piece together the story of the boys' deaths. In the process, she unearths the long-held secrets of her family's history.

Nina Revoyr is the author of "The Necessary Hunger "("Irresistible." -- "Time Magazine"). She wasborn in Japan, raised in Tokyo and Los Angeles, and is of Japanese and Polish-American descent. She lives and works in Los -Angeles.

Home Fronts In her introduction to this timely and brave collection of essays, Jess Wells argues that queer parenting is well enough established that we can stand back as a community and offer a little constructive self-criticism. "Only after we secure a minimal amount of social stature," writes Wells, "are we able to realize that we've been painting a good face on our parenting and refusing to discuss our own mistakes because we've had to ward off the cultural assumption that we are all bad parents."